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[Silfurdreki]

Wait.
If you have an enemy behind another enemy and a MEC punches one into another, do they both take damage?

No, Sadly. They really should, though, given that they are punched with enough force to propel their corpse through a wall, slamming into a car that subsequently explodes.

[Yolan]

I got this game to work after tec support suggested I manually update my onboard intel drivers. Nice.

I played a few missions on regular, found it a bit too easy and swapped to classic, and got my ass handed to me. It really hurt every time I saw a squad member go down once I had got attached to them. NOO!! WARDOOOOG!!!! I'm going back to normal mode for now.

[Mr Space Cat]

Rather than finish a game on Classic for once I started another C/I with the intention of only using standard weapons with reaper rounds+tactical rigging for everyone.

Thin men happened. First thin man I encountered one shot crit my only heavy through full cover on the first shot. Things quickly went downhill from there. Over the course of multiple games thin men massacred multiple squads, killed multiple only-heavies-in-my-whole-base, survived flanks from shotgun assaults by only taking 3 damage from a 90% crit chance shot, and basically acted like thin men. Jeeeeeeeeez. It'd be nice if I could get through the second month before getting slaughtered.

Aiming angles and thin men are a deathtrap. I've had entire squads wiped from two thin men. It seems like if I don't have a heavy once I start getting thin men I'm doomed.

[Krath]

Second month in on my first Classic playthrough, Hidden Potential and Training Roulette active.

I have seven snipers. I fear for myself.

[GreatWyrmGold]

A compilation of my first playthrough of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, first shared to the Einsteinian Roulette community who got me into this game. Easy difficulty, allegedly.

I started playing X-Com: Enemy Unknown. The first mission went tutorially. The second went easily--a bit more freedom, but still pretty linear. I think I killed both of the enemies with one shot of the rifle instead of using the rocket launcher like they recommended. Wish I had caught the name of the soldier who did that.
It's pretty impressive. I like how the game transitions so smoothly from tactical view to personal view to "cutscene". It's a well-designed engine. The gameplay seems pretty fun, too, but I've only started.
EDIT: I think it's a Juan Medina of Argentina, home nation of Sq. Jorge Vargas, only survivor of the Tutorial. Medina became a Support, while fellow rookie Chase Mills of Canada became a Sniper for killing one enemy. With a grenade, I believe. Azubuike Hangana of some nation with a green-and-white flag got no kills. Poor guy...

Spoiler: My X-Com Adventures, Continued (click to show/hide)

Just wondering, what difficulty setting are you playing on?

The easiest.

Also, on the subject of your grenade-throwing soldier becoming a Sniper; there's no way to predetermine which class your rookies will be come, it's based on a lottery system. When they level up, no matter how they got their kills, their class will be randomly chosen. Which is why I have about 94 Assaults and 2 Supports.

I knew that. It's still amusing.

Another mission: Rescuing an escapee of abductions, one Anna Sing. The team: Juan, Chase, and Azusomething of the previous mission, plus Akemi Okada, the Japanese rookie. Akemi (I'm assuming the game uses proper Japanese nomenclature) notes a human-looking alien. The scientist whose name escapes me requests that we try to capture it. I'm game, how do we do it? In attempting to kill/capture the thing, I discover that shifting even a single square prevents the sniper from firing. Oops. With help from an ally, though, his pistol takes down what was identified as a Thin Man, though well after it poisoned Hagana. No idea how to fix it, I'm thinking the black guy is going to die first. Eagle-eye Okada (Note to self: Make this her actual nickname) spots an alien moving to hide behind a big van thing. Sadly, en route to a decent position, she gets used in a lesson on how Overwatch works. Hagana fragged it (after it got off another shot), then Juan saw another of the little Sectoid things. Akemi, of course, spots Sing; it is thereafter discovered that two, rather than just one, of the Sectoids are present, seeming to be moving away from Ms. Sing, which would be good if they weren't probably moving to more efficiently kill us. And, of course, they are on the opposite side of the statue, etc, area from the entire team except her. While the others move into position, Akemi promptly frags the two sectoids.
Meanwhile, Anna Sing keeps pestering us to come "Over here!" instead of deal with the aliens who were shooting at us. Mills approaches her, and warns us that "they're everywhere". As we start to head back to the Skyranger, another Thin Man shows up and a car explodes (thankfully not near anyone). The Thin Man Overwatch-shoots at Akemi, but misses (as have most of the shots aimed at her). While the team moves to engage, I have Sing head straight for the extraction point. Terror is a scary thing. You know what else is scary? Akemi, who crits the Thin Man, killing it in one shot. (Come to think of it, everything's died in one shot. Except our agents.) We hurry onwards, Sing streaking ahead...straight into a Thin Man. (I was fully expecting something like this to happen. About frikkin' time.) This Thin Man continues to show their characteristic terrible aim, getting off a single miss before the sniper hit him with his pistol and Hangana finished the thinnie. The mission ended the instant Sing enters the magical rectangle, and promptly runs out in thanks.

Everyone except Juan Medina got wounded. The worst was Mills, at 16 days, but Akemi got nine and Hangana four. Hangana became another sniper, while Akemi became a nice assault. Fun.

((I wonder what the chance is of someone posting before I finish another mission and type up another report.))

Spoiler: More X-Com Stuff (click to show/hide)

So it turns out restarting your computer without saving is a bad idea. Shocker, I know. Fare-thee-well, Jorge, Juan, Chase, Azuwhatever, and Okada. And the rest of you wannabes. Time to start a new game, I guess...

Operation Devil's Moon
In the briefing, I realized why we don't get missions to Belgium, Korea, or anything. X-Com only sends missions to member nations, which kinda sucks for everyone else but I guess they don't have the resources for anything else to begin with?
Soldiers: Chase Cook, Juan Castillo, Kostya Chepurnov, Yoko Fujiwara. Sadly, only Castillo survived, because during the tutorial everyone is made of wet tissue paper.

Operation Cursed Heat
We got a nice team this time. Castillo returns, along with Malika Ajram of some country I don't recognize the flag of, Anastasiya Smirnova of what I presume is Russia, and Chen Huang of China. Nice, gender-even, racially-balanced team. I wouldn't be surprised if it included a Buddhist, an atheist, and a homosexual, plus whatever other social issues they feel they want to include. (I can even make wild guesses as to whom each of those might be.)
We've got an abduction issue in LA, USA, which is still rather warm even in March. It went boringly. Ajram screwed up when I thought it was Huang's turn, and basically wasted half the turn. Then, she screwed up a grenade throw to destroy some cover, Castillo misses with the rocket launcher, and in a sudden display of competence, Huang kills the aliens with a grenade. The aliens were worse--they missed every shot. As you may have imagined, they got access to a lot.
Smirnova, who killed an alien earlier, got promoted to Assault. Huang, for his competent grenadiering, got promoted to sniper. Castillo, for killing another alien, got promoted to hospital patient (the first batch hit him, putting him out of commission for 12 days). We got four new scientists, but panic spread across Asia. Pretty successful.

Operation Devil's Smoke
Huang and Ajram return, along with Sabastian Papadoupolous of what I believe is Sweden and Emily King of Australia. We need to rescue an Anna Sing from Ms. King's  backyard, Sydney. Papadopul...Papa notices a strangely human-like alien, slender in appearance, like some kind of man in black. He shot a lion statue, destroying it and showering Papa and Huang, who were using it for cover, with debris. King gets shot and poisoned by another of those sectoids, right before yet another runs right past Ajram. That and another shot her, killing her (right in front of Sing). Papa killed one of them, while Huang missed a headshot on the other that King quickly dispatched.
We rescued Sing, triggering a swarm of Thin Men with terrible aim. They even missed people running at them, although one poisoned Sing when she was behind a bench. Remarkably, Sing running into the rectangle did not end the mission--we had to kill the last Thinman.
As mentioned, Ajram was KIA. RIP. King and Papa became Support, with the former being gravely injured requiring a dozen days of healing. We got a dozen weapon fragments and half as many corpses, good haul.

We have some nice plans for capturing aliens and interrogating them, and will presumably do so soon enough...

Ninjedit: There was a new post. And X-Com related one. Thanks for the advice!

Hopefully, piecewise won't mind me turning this into an impromptu X-Com blog.

Spoiler: More of my X-Com Adventures (click to show/hide)

Operation Shattered Pipe
Small UFO found in a scan. Our Raven-1 shot it down almost instantly; the following cutscene was accidentally skipped. Now to hunt it down, with a Dream Team--Castillo, Papa, Huang, and Smirnova. We are to try and get the UFO back if possible, trying not to break it. Papa spots a couple survivors, who use some kind of weird magical glowy thing which causes them both to die when Papa shoots one. At least I think that's what happened. Huang spots another duo, which he promptly botches a headshot on one because those 55% chances of success make him terrible. Smirnova runs into the open and shoots a sectoid, because that's how Assaults roll. Sadly, this lead to her being shot. Happily, she then runs behind cover and deals a critical!
Evidently, the UFO includes a creature of pure energy (and concentrated Castillo-hurting). It anticlimatically vanishes when Smirnova shoots it.
Papa and Huang are promoted to Corporal. Castillo is out of action for 11 days, Papa for 5. We recover a crapton of alien toys.

I have work begun on some new labs, and then decide that I ought to save sooner or later...but can't figure out how. Some advice here would be nice.

Spoiler: X-Com Stuff (click to show/hide)

We figure out those arc reactors, dissect an alien, and create an arc reactor and everything else we need to capture an alien. Nice, productive period of time. And then...a new mission. Everyone except Castillo could come, but who is coming?

Operation Secret Skull
Veterans Emily King and Anastasaya Smirnova are joined by Maggie Hill of I need to get better at reading flags (although I can't find any information on what country has a blue flag with a white X on it) and Moshe Moshe of somewhere in Africa. Our briefing was "You'll be heading into Japan for the next one," which was incredibly helpful as it warned us that we need to be on guard for tentacle monsters and kaiju (and tentacled kaiju) in addition to the normal sectoids and thin men. Our mission: Stop a bomb from exploding. Pretty simple, I guess. Except for all the alien scum which will doubtlessly be crawling around trying to stop us.
We see "power nodes," which will be charging the "plasma bomb". Moshe and Hill head to the first one, while Smirnova and King head towards the second, figuring the rookies can handle the first. King spots a Sectoid, which promptly hides in a train car and begins Overwatching us. Hill disarms both like a champ before running into the train, getting shot at, and noting another sectoid and a thin man. Moshe runs directly through the train, glad that his armor is glass-proof, followed by King, who has the windows prebroken. I discover that I don't know how to use the Run And Gun skill Smirnova has, and that the thin man and the indoor sectoid both don't like Hill. I have her retreat out of the train due to having only one health thing left; she gets shot by the other sectoid (Overwatch) and manages to kill the first one. Moshe disarms another node before running to the next, right next to the thin man and discovering a couple (I think) more sectoids. Smirnov hurries to his defense, successfully running and gunning and critting. King disarms another node, hurries to the next on her level, and...sees the bomb. Smirnova disarms another node and shotguns a sectoid through a poor potted plant, King disables another power node before advancing towards the bomb. More nodes disabled by Hill, who really doesn't have much else to do since I'm keeping her out of the way in hopes that she does not die. Meanwhile, Moshe misses the last sectoid--again--before Smirnova simply runs up and presses her shotgun against its head. (And, to complete the mental image, you should probably know that I gave Smirnova pink hair before her first mission to make her distinctive. Because evidently shotgunning enemies at extreme close range isn't distinctive enough?) King disables the bomb, whoo.
A couple of Thin Men drop in. One shoots and critically woulds Hill as she moves along the train! Smirnova gets revenge with her last bullet. The other one gets missed with a frag grenade and shoots Moshe; two turns until he bleeds out. Smirnova and King both hit, the former a glancing blow with her pistol, the latter a blast with her shotgun.
One down; Moshe Moshe didn't make it. Smirnova (now with eight kills!) and King are promoted to Corporal. Hill is out of action for ten days. Nice deal for the rookies.

Life goes on. Two new laboratories go online. Carapace armor is developed, but we have only five out of the required ten engineers to make it. ("Couldn't we just have the engineers work twice as hard?" I ask. This nets me a dirty look. "I meant long," I say as an attempt to patch up, but I've already lost...) We begin analyzing weapon fragments, but those aliens begin abducting people before we can finish. There are three locations--Bloemfontein, Mumbai, and Ottowa. South Africa, India, and Canada are offering a sergeant (Heavy-class), four scientists, and a boost to funding, respectively...I suggest that we should construct another Skyranger soon so we can respond to more than one issue at once, getting dirty looks, before going to Mumbai due to higher panic levels in Asia (IIRC, given that we didn't rescue them there last time).

Operation Final Mist (Oh how I wish there wouldn't be any more mist).
Huang and Papa are joined by rookies Gaston Mercier of France and Hiroki Endo of Japan. Aside from Papa, they're all bald or nearly so. Funny how that worked out.
Mercier spots a couple sectoids around a green, prone-human-shaped thing who promptly run for cover. We are apparently on a rooftop, which makes total sense, especially given the bulk of the Skyranger. How does it even fly? That seems like it would require a huge waste of energy. Mercier climbs on top of a shipping container for a better spot and locates two more sectoids! If he survives the mission and I figure out how to unlock the nickname option, I'm nicknaming him Eagle-Eye, an especially good name since he killed a sectoid through said shipping container. Endo shoots but does not kill one of the first sectoids, which has the weird psychic glow. Huang finishes the second pair off, before Papa kills another. The second of the first pair shows up and shoots...someone successfully. (There are a bunch of people on that one wall. Good thing they don't have grenades.) The rookies split the last kill, and Huang takes position atop a shipping container. Papa quickly ascends up the building and hears something...odd. Papa investigates, everyone follows, Papa gets shot, and shoots back, hitting but not killing. Mercier follows suit, while Endo drops a story for a better shot and dispatches it. (The third bird gets the sectoid, I guess.) Huang joins the X-Com Parkour Team, while Papa shoots the last sectoid off the building, which brings his kill count (formerly one behind Smirnova) up to 9.
Papa got the nickname "Mr. Clean," which makes no sense, and was promoted to sergeant, which does. Mercier became an Assault, Endo a Heavy. Papa is out for eight days, Endo for five (attributed in part to botched parkour).

And I still don't know how to save...

Spoiler: X-Comedy of Enginerrors (click to show/hide)

At the request of the command, I hire a rookie even though we still have a few untrained kids to spend/train.
We finish investigating some weapon fragments and begin autopsying Thin Men, which is followed by "Experimental Warfare".

We got the Council Report, which was overwhelmingly positive even though Canada, China, and South Africa are panicking with three panic thingies (and the US, Mexico, Nigeria, and Egypt are close). We got a few scientists and an engineer. "More engineers would be more useful," I said. "I'm not entirely certainly we have enough work for all the scientists, but we definitely could use a few more engineers to get the carapace armor." But they don't listen.

Experimental Warfare research went well, resulting in a new Interceptor weapon and some more possibilities on the horizon. I tell them to research beam weapons, maybe get some of these possibilities off the ground. I have some more space excavated, in hopes of expanding the facility. We get basic beam weapons--laser pistols and rifles. I order them to work on precision, expecting something to come up before they finish. And it does...in North America, where we don't have any interceptors. Dang. This raises panic in the US.

Egypt asks for laser pistols. I intend to oblige them once making them...only to discover that they require 10 engineers to make. We really need engineers. And I might as well order that Interceptor for America. And another Uplink...wait, we're short engineers. Again. Instead, I begin construction of a power facility and another lab.

Some abductions show up, remarkably none in the US. Instead, we have...a game crash? Well, here's hoping it autosaved.
It was Brazil, India, and something else, but now it doesn't matter.

Spoiler: X-Com (click to show/hide)

Thankfully, I didn't lose much progress thanks to the Magic of Autosaves.
Alien abductions. Right. Egypt, Brazil, India. Egypt has high Panic and is also offering engineers. So what if it's Difficult? Four Engineers are way better than a sniper or some credits.

Operation Sacred Ring
Huang, Papa Clean, Smirnova, Castillo. Four of our best and most experienced operatives, sent to investigate the abductions and neutralize the abductors.
Pretty normal, until old Castillo spies the first...well, let's call them aliens because they're definitely on their side, but they are even more definitely not just normal aliens. They're cyborgs. These floaty guys turn out to be relatively destructible, given that Huang shot one in the head and it kind of exploded. The other seemed more durable, or at least more agile. Smirnova hit, but the entire rest of the squad missed. And, because a damaged floaty robot guy isn't enough, a couple sectoids showed up. And the car Castillo and Papa Clean are taking cover behind explodes because eff you.
Smirnova runs right next to the cyborg and shotguns it into submission, because I'm 90% certain that's what Assaults are supposed to do. Castillo, who looks pretty beat-up, retreats into a convenient truck, which Huang heads for as a good elevated snipery position. Papa advances, with a car he took cover by along the way getting blown up. Smirnova advances...and notices another pair of floating cyborgs. Papa noticves even more freaking sectoids, because seriously do we have enough enemies yet? And a van explodes for no good (ie, tactical) reason. Smirnova gets hit badly by one of the floating bastards, while Huang headshoots the other and Castillo discovers he has 0% chance to hit. Papa Clean kills one of the sectoids before the car next to him explodes, lethally. Things are looking bad...
The truck Castillo just vacated and Huang is on explodes, with as much effect as the misses that Smirnova keeps receiving. The remaining floated greatly wounds Huang, bringing everyone still alive into two-bar territory, ie "I wonder if running would be a good option IRL." Then things start looking up--Smirnova destroys a sectoid, Castillo finishes off the floater, Huang reloads and gets killed by a lucky shot, crap. Well, Castillo makes a daring run out of cover to kill a sectoid, and Smirnova feels pinned by Overwatch so she maneuvers...getting shot anyways, and now not being able to line up a shot. So, she Runs and Guns and kills the bastard. Mission complete, but with heavy casualties. Dammit, I bet some Carapace armor would have been really useful...
Smirnova passed Papa Clean in killcount by one, which is kinda sad in a way. Mostly because P.C. is dead now. All survivors, and the dead guys, earned promotions--Sergeant for Smirnova "Socks," and Corporal for Castillo "Hasn't killed enough people for a nickname". Both are out of commission for a while, Smirnova for 15 days and Castillo for 17. Sacred Ring, Devil's Moon...maybe we should stop using sacred/mystical imagery in the mission names.

But at least we have precision lasers now, with laser versions of sniper rifles and shotguns available. I now realize that future lasers will just broaden the variety available and hence have no problem with outfitting the soldiers with them. Aside from lack of engineers, that is. The floaters begin being autopsied. Dr. Shen provides some ominous commentary about becoming the monster we fight, which frankly seems premature.
Then the floater autopsy result comes back. Apparently, we can use the data to enhance our own soldiers reflexes. Forget becoming the monster, I'm afraid of becoming the corpse. I'm thinking of Papa Clean, Huang, the others who have died under my command...I'd rather prefer they didn't. But we probably don't have enough alloy and engineers to outfit any soldiers with the Defense Matrix anyways. And it looks like it's only for the Interceptors. Shoot. My hopes of protecting my beloved soldiers by turning them into crimes against nature have been delayed.

Fun fact: I was discussing X-Com tactics with a friend. He came to the following conclusions:
1. It is hard to design a strategy when you don't know what the enemy wants.
2. Aside from the whole "First and last line of defense thing" (and presumably the only-able-to-send-one-team-of-four-at-a-time thing), X-Com is doing a pretty decent job at handling the aliens. He would have advised arming anyone willing to fight as a first line.
3a. Throwing the weapons of dead aliens at groups of aliens would be good if you didn't have a gun.
3b. Shooting aliens in the middle of massed groups? Good way to dissuade them from making those exploding weapons. (Or from assembling in massed groups.)
4. Snipers should be put inside of buildings instead of having them find what cover they can on the street.

(Continued, as this passes the character limit...)

[GreatWyrmGold]

(My playthrough, Pt. 2)

Spoiler: I've long since run out of clever X-Com-related titles (click to show/hide)

Dr. Vahlen begins work on skeleton suits and makes a pretty racist comment about the aliens as evidently only seeing science as a means to an end, discarding life as needed to reach their goal. I could go on for an hour about humans with exactly that mindset, but...well, do we have any proof that the aliens are actually doing that?

Operation Vengeful Prophet
A small UFO is detected in Germany. Joining technical veteran and Assaulter Gaston Mercier are new recruits Molly White and George Robinson of England and Eduardo Castro of...some country I can't identify or find the flag of (it has three horizontal stripes, two red and one yellow, and an emblem towards the left). Hopefully the Religious/Mystic Name Curse won't strike...but if it does, we won't lose anyone too important.
Eagle-Eye Mercier spots a few of what seem to be Floaters. And I failed to notice where the UFO was, so half the team moved a bit past it/in the wrong way. Robinson kills one, but a whole mess of sectoids and thin men show up. White throws a grenade at a few of them, earning a rebuke from Dr. Vahlen, who evidently does not realize that sometimes explosives are the best way not to get eviscerated. Castro makes like an Assault and runs up to a floater that floated in behind him, almost taking it out of commission but forcing Mercier to finish it off with his pistol. Robinson gets shot by a couple thin men demonstrating quite unmockable aim, but White and Robinson get vengeance. The remaining sectoids are finished without incident.
Robinson...somehow gets poisoned, and triggers what seems to be another floater as he advances towards the UFO. The remainder of the rookies follow without incident, but Mercier comes close enough to an opening to trigger an energy enemy's creation. Robinson advanced for the entrance, encountered a Floater, exchanged shots, and died. White advanced a bit less, stayed under cover, and killed the Floater. The others advance, and surround the entrance of the ship. I try to have the squad Overwatch, so they shoot the energy being inside if it shoots, but evidently Overwatch does not work that way. So, White simply charges in and executes the bastard.
White was wounded, out of action for nine days. She and Castro became snipers for their reckless action.

I have a workshop built, so maybe we'll have enough engineers to make a gorram laser bigger than a pistol. The "Skeleton Suit," armor which incorporates a grapple thingy and also improves evasion, was perfected. I have us start work on those neat alien computers (maybe they're strong enough to play Dwarf Fortress at a decent FPS?), and Vahlen again cautions against explosives use.
I visit the Situation Room, selling 20 of the 34 sectoid corpses we have to collectors in the Council and noting panic levels. They're highest in the US and China; if there are abductions either of those places, I really ought to go to them. Close behind are India, South Africa, Canada, and Brazil.

The aliens begin attacking places outright, including Johannesburg. They're "terrorizing" there. It's evidently a Very Difficult mission...I didn't have any Skeleton Suits made, did I? Too late now. I need to assemble my new Dream Team for...
Operation Forgotten Heart
I begin by realizing that we have four non-rookies in a state to enter combat: Mercier the Assault, Endo the Heavy, Castro the Sniper, and King the Support. Well...they're no Dream Team, but they're what we have. Don't die.
We need to protect and save civilians above all else. Well...carp. This is going to be a clusterfrak.
Mercier approaches a building containing civilians when he spots two weird, vaguely arthropodian aliens. This is going to be such a clusterfrak. The new guys take a hit from Endo and a couple misses from the others before near-killing and poisoning Mercier and killing a civilian. Another dies elsewhere and a couple floaters show up. Mercier shimmies up a convenient pipe before killing a floater. Endo finishes off his crawly guy, King kills the other floater, and...Vahlen drops the z-bomb, aimed at the dead civilian who is now up and moving. Well, frak me with a scatter laser (if we ever get enough engineers). If these things are contagious...
A crit from Mercier and a burst from Endo destroy the zed, but there's probably more out there...the counter counts three civilian casualties. King sees another skittering beast and its zombie, letting Castro clip the skitterer. This zombie, like the last, comes right up to King. Guess they have something for the ladies...
Castro headshoots the zed, with a crit, but it's still shambling. King herself finishes the corpse off, only to have another shamble at her. Maybe she should move from the doorway?
The crawler sprints across the street, through the team, and into a building containing civilians. Counter: Six dead, two re-dead. One zombie seen, three unaccounted for.
Mercier and Castro kill the crawler, while Endo and King...nearly kill the zombie, who returns the favor by nearly killing King. Mercier finishes it off. Three re-dead, five unaccounted for. Endo spots a couple floaters inside a building; Castro blows one up, King heals herself, and Mercier gets missed by the other floater. The civilians flee. Endo enters the building, kills the other Floater...and we're done. Evidently, five got killed by either floaters or (non-contagious) zeds. All things considered, that went very, very, VERY well.
Everyone got promoted. King became a sergeant and got the nickname "Cookie" (who comes up with these things?); the others became Corporals. King and Mercier got hospitalized for 12 and 13 days, respectively. We got a couple "cryssalid" corpses (What happened to the guys who named Floaters and Thin Men?) and some more Floaters and weapon fragments. Oh, and panic in Africa is a non-issue. I immediately attempt to get some Skeleton Suits made, only to discover that they require--guess--more engineers.

We begin autopsy of the cryssalids and...egypt (why is it always Egypt?) requests some weapon fragments. We oblige, and get some credits in return. We learn a bit about the cryssalids, which makes them all the more terrifying: They take over humans with their embryos, which gestate within minutes to make new ones...
Expansion of the facility continues. We finish examining the aliens' power generator thingies.

Operation Crimson Night
More abductions. Japan, Nigeria, Argentina. Japan is offering engineers, but we've almost finished the workshop, and I fear the Difficult rating of the mission...Due more to panic than anything, we go to Argentina, which is offering a Support Sergeant if we help them. Man, we need to get another Skyranger or two.
Castro is joined by rookies Hamza Ajram of somewhere with a green flag, Roman Torres of Argentinia, and Jonas Schultz of Germany.
A couple of Floaters are almost instantly spotted, followed by a couple Sectoids. Even though Arjam has crap accuracy even within four spaces of a floater, the floaters are pretty easily dealt with...then two more show up. Torres proves that killing one of the sectoids that's psychically linked--however that works--kills them both. That leaves two Floaters, one of whom gets shot at by everyone but only hit by Schulz, despite his 45% chance to hit being one of the lower ones. The remaining Floater gets his revenge, floating into melee range and ripping him apart. (Technically, Shulz was merely shot again, but between proximity and coolness...) Torres earned a promotion by running up to the Floater and blasting it to bits.
"Everything by the numbers."
Chinese panic reaches the highest levels. Carp, forgot that. Should have gone for Japan...
Torres gets promoted to Support.

Elerium has been fully analyzed. It is impossible to make, but highly useful. We begin work on something called Titan Armor...
We get that Workshop finished! We begin using the extra engineers by making a Skeleton Suit and a Laser Rifle, but sadly lack of funds prevents us from making more.

The monthly report comes in. We're doing well, but there is room for improvement, as shown by China's withdrawal from X-COM and both Japan and India coming close...

Nigeria asks for laser rifles. Maybe when we can more freely manufacture the alloys needed.
We figure out the Titan Armor. Sadly, we don't have enough raw material or leads to do much of anything. And the game crashed again...

Spoiler: Hey, I thought of one: X-Communication (click to show/hide)

Alright, the autosave caught basically everything until the Council Report, which went better. The US's panic didn't decrease, but China's still in. Oh, and a UFO showed up before we could finish the Titan Armor. The interceptor was heavily damaged, but we won.

Operation Lone Smoke
We're heading out with new gear. Socks (Smirnova) has the carapace (technically not new), Castro has the skeleton suit, and Torres has the laser rifle. I consider bringing "Saturn" (real name: Emilio Ruiz), the guy Argentina gave us, but decide to train Victor Sanchez instead.
It's quiet for too long...then Castro comes across some hulking aliens, presumably their front-line combatants. Now, Castro is awesome, he has the skeleton suit, but he isn't an Assault person, and Socks is across the battlefield. Skeleton suit or no, half his health is wiped out with the first hit. Thankfully, the rest of the team shows up, Socks triggering an "Intimidate" effect (I think?) before Torres of the LAser Rifle steals her kill. Castro headshoots the other, leaving the rookie with not much to do...although three floaters show up right by where he moved up to. A couple get killed easily, and the last retreats. Whilst chasing it, a few sectoids show up. Socks enters, getting shot by one and activating the energy critter. Sadly, Sanchez killed the bugger before Socks could, but she understood, killing the energy creature instead. Time for some looting.
...Another crash? Oh come on.

Spoiler: X-Common (click to show/hide)

Operation Lone Smoke
Went pretty much the same, except that Socks got zapped by a sectoid before blowing its head off right at the end and the game didn't crash.
Castro got promoted to Sergeant, nicknamed "Lockdown," and wounded, taking him out of action for a week. Everyone else was fine with band-aids and asprin, it seems. Armor is awesome. Socks got promoted to Lieutenant, and Torres to Corporal. We got a lot of loot, including two "muton" corpses. Those must be the front-line hulks we saw and conquered when we came.

At Dr. Shen's advice, I have a foundry started. Brazil requests laser rifles, to which we reply "Will you supply us with more alien alloys?" The response is negative. We figure out titan armor and begin autopsying mutons, which are evidently very similar to floaters. I intend to begin construction of some Titan armor...nope, we only have 16 engineers and need 25. We begin investigating how we could use alien tech to improve our interceptors, because it's that or improve interceptor lasers. Come on, we were promised weaponizing crimes against nature like a month ago!

We finish a new satellite uplink, intended to be used to launch satellites in Asia and Africa...only satellites are the first project to require actual time to complete. And then abductions.
"Seriously, listen to me. We're making revolutionary powered armor, space-jets that shoot down UFOs, and lasers, and we can't afford another Skyranger?"
Anyways...we can't afford more panic in Asia, so it crashed again. Um.


Steam says there are issues with the Steam Cloud, so I'll come back later.

Spoiler: X-Combustion (click to show/hide)

Warning: No actual combustion. Probably. Now that I've said that, of course, I give it 50-50 odds that something important gets set on fire.

Three abductions. We really need a couple more Skyrangers. Nigeria, Australia, UK. Nigeria is Difficult and offers a Heavy, UK is Easy and offers four engineers, and Australia offers $200 and reduces Panic in a terrified area...but is Very Difficult. Well, frak me with a firecracker, we're going Down Under. We really can't take any higher Panic in Asia.

Operation Demon Gift
Cookie, Socks, Saturn, and White--AKA Emily King of Australia, the medic, Anastasaya Smirnova of where-do-you-think, the Assault soldier with the highest kill-count of anyone (closely followed by the late Papa Clean), the Support guy the Argentinians gave us, and our only Sniper ready for action--prepare for action. This could be the toughest mission yet. I really hope no one dies, but it wouldn't surprise me. Good luck, soldiers.
Three hulks--wait, they were called "mutons"--three mutons and a pair of floaters show up and surround Saturn. Remarkably, he survives a barrage from the mutons...barely. One of the floaters is headshotted by White, but remarkably little else is accomplished before two more of the aerially-enabled bastards showed up. Saturn polishes off one of the mutons, White explodes another floater, Socks explodes yet another, and Cookie accidentally advances to the wrong side of cover, losing half her turn and a bit more than half of her health. Thank any god there may be that the second muton shot missed, because she has the only medkit and Saturn is in critical condition. (Note to self: Buy more medikits.) More aliens are shot, White earns a promotion, a tactical miscalculation prevents proper use of Socks's gun and costs her the kill, and the firefight ends. One man down, three women looking around worried for what comes next.
As half the team advances, Cookie works on trying to figure out what button to press to revive Saturn, and what reviving actually does. Google helps. I'm pretty sure by this point that it A. requires an upgrade and B. is not required to bring the man back alive. White advances, spotting a trio of sectoids hiding behind the building everyone is on. I waste Run and Gun moving to a position none of them are actually visible from. LOS, thou art a cruel--wait, I can't see them but they can shoot me? What kind of crap is this? Screw this, Socks is hopping into melee range. Not that she gets to kill any--White and even Cookie kill the sectoids first.
That was "Very Difficult"? I suddenly feel more confident about things.
White is promoted to Corporal, as well as "Only person not to be hospitalized" and "Five behind Socks in killcount" (tied with Papa Clean). Saturn is out of action for two weeks, which is pretty minor considering how close he came to death; Socks is out for nine days; Cookie will be back in action in just under a week.

Nigeria is panicking. Great. At least it isn't China.
I buy a couple things, yes including another medikit.
The research is complete. It "bring(s) us closer to matching the alien ships in combat," which will be useful as we have previously only been blowing them out of the air with damage easily repairable by the next invasion. I have them work on an EMP cannon next, because it promises to increase loot recovered from spacecraft we bring down, and because that archangel armor sounds impractical and I haven't found a situation where the skeleton suit came in handy, so mobility upgrades seem sort of meh.
The foundry is completed. I decide to have them start developing S.H.I.V. units.

A Large UFO is seen over North America. The only ship there? The Raven-3, same as the Raven-1 and Raven-2 in Europe. Well...let's cross our fingers and hope for OH THE HUMANITY! I order a new Interceptor, hopefully one of the upgraded ones that is closer to matching the alien ships in combat. For some reason, though, the UFO causes panic in the US. Those quirky Americans.

Abductions. Again. Seriously, I order an Interceptor and they say "It'll be here in three days". I order a Skyranger and they look at me like I'm crazy. THIS IS A PATTERN, NOT AN ISOLATED EVENT. And then the game crashes. Funny how this always follows one in a few Alt-Tabs. I wonder if I can use Chrome or something in one half of the screen and play X-Com in the other, or if that only works with PDFs and such.
This time, though, it was followed by a weird problem where the cursor hugged the lower-left-hand corner. Anyways. Turn came up while I was rebooting. Best kind of ninja.

piecewise: I'm a bit wary of just going for the high ground ever since my best sniper got killed due to lack of cover. And I eagerly await figuring out how to just run back to the Skyranger. It's probably something simple like moving everyone into the glowing rectangle, but meh.

Spoiler: X-Combat (click to show/hide)

So what if I like completing a "game blog" once I've started it? I have every intention of sharing the details on every mission and research thingy until they fire me for incompetence or conquer the Earth! (Different "they"s. Also, I suppose success is a possibility.)

I ordered new Interceptors and got an autosave. Right. Then...panic in the US over the UFO, a bunch more abductions and complaints about not being able to get multiple Skyrangers. I'll take Canada, because the US pulling out would be bad and the Chinese mission is Very Difficult. Sadly, this means China will probably be pulling out, and I don't get more engineers.

Operation Broken Thunder
Socks. Cookie. Lockdown. Sanchez. They are three of our most experienced soldiers, and a guy from Argentina who gets the laser rifle.
I am helpfully reminded that our Interceptor recently got shot down, because this is totally the best time to bring that up. More useful to bring up: I forgot to give Castro the skeleton suit, which is still being worn by White.
A couple mutons show up, causing everyone to complain about them flanking their positions even though they are both on one side and about as far from her as they could be. A couple of floaters are also spotted, still on the same side, leading to exclamations that make me doubt these idiots would know a flank from a feint. I get some lessons too, though: Flowerbeds make poor cover. Still, the enemies are easily taken down.
No sooner does Lockdown smash the last floater than do two more show up, showing terrible tactical sense, one flying through a window and one trying to get through a wall to get at us. Maybe their CPUs got fried? Eh, that's more amusing than the actual answer no doubt. Sanchez bursts in after the runaway and notes a pair of thin men as well. (He ends up killing the one he didn't run after, because 84>39.) The thin men hop up and down from a rooftop more than is strictly needed, shooting through a shop at Socks and unsuccessfully at Lockdown. Sanchez nails a thin man through a car (better chance to hit than the enemies right on the other side of the wall), Socks uses a double-tap to take down the floater, and Cookie executes the last alien.
Why does X-Com like crashing after mission success?
Alright, I lost basically a turn. No biggie. New stuff: I misread hit rates, but the original idea was better since thin men apparently poison you if you're too close when you kill them. Other than switching thin men, it worked the same.
Everyone except Lockdown got promoted--Sanchez became a heavy, Socks became a Captain, Cookie became a Lieutenant. Socks and Lockdown will be in the infirmary for eight and nine days, respectively.

Panic in Japan and India. The Interceptor arrives in America and the new one is online. Sadly, the new one is also a basic Raven from the looks of it. We need to figure out that whole "install new technologies on Interceptors" thing. "Edit Loadout" isn't enough, it won't let me add the dodging matrix I made.
We figured out EMP cannons, which somehow also let us repair the SHIVs we almost have in combat. Science! We begin research into Archangel armor, because it's that or heavy lasers and I don't see us needing that.
The SHIVs are ready, I guess.

Operation Frozen Dawn
A UN official was caught in an alien attack in Brazil. I know, I know, "Back to the Skyranger," but this sounds important. We're low on funds, need to train rookies, and that "Panic Reduction" sounds really nice.
Castillo (that guy who survived the first mission? Remember him? He's back in commission) and Saturn are joined by Mary O'Sullivan of Ireland and Molly White, a sniper. Saturn's getting an arc thrower, because this sounds like a decent time to see if we can't capture one of the aliens. Unless it turns out to be a tougher mission than it sounds, in which case...
Right away, we hear someone claiming to be a "friendly" (his exact words are "Friendlies over here," but whatever). I'm leaning towards "updated thin men," but you never know...and you'd better believe I'd get sacked if I was wrong. I see a great overhanging sign thing that looks strong enough for a sniper, but the skeleton suit doesn't seem to let me up there. Seriously, what is it supposed to be used for? Saturn approaches, once the rest of the team is around him, and the friendly points to Van Doorn, the general we're supposed to save, before saying that he and his team are too weak to help any until we get him. They'll cover our way back or something. Gee, thanks. Castillo advances, and sees some thin men who miss and poison him. White clips one with her pistol while advancing, which Saturn simply overkills. The klutz thin man hits Castillo, who advanced and Overwatched. More like Overlook, amirite? Anyways, pistols are drawn to hurt it, which works--each deals one damage, knocking it down to one, allowing Saturn to try the arc thrower. After getting shot and after he claims the thin man is trying to flank him because he snuck up behind the same piece of cover he was using. This is easy. Switch to Saturn, shift over, and hope the stun button is YES IT'S THE ARC THROWER!
More thin men are sighted as we advance...and they kill Castillo, sending a couple of the others into panic. Saturn and White. The general complains about it not being fair if he has all the fun. Yes, half the squad is panicking over our oldest veteran being DEAD, leaving a rookie to handle the job, everything's hunky-dory.
And the game crashes. Well, pretty decent timing I guess. Does this count as save scumming?
Now where are we...thin man stunned, VIP being belligerent, no thin men in sight. Neat.
The new kid grenades the pair, then moves forward with (ahead of) the team as the general criticizes us for letting him have all the fun. I note that, while no one is panicking, Castillo seems to be gone. Odd. Well, there's two more thin men (were they on sale when the aliens stocked this UFO?), one of which White headshoots. We rendezvous with Van Doorn, and more thin men drop in from the skies. Yup, definitely a bulk sale. The one ahead of the team is killed by White, who earns a promotion. Doorn mentions interest in "getting another shot at these bastards. I owe it to my men." I promise to give him an X-Com volunteer form when we get back to base. After we kill the last thin men nearby, Doorn heads back to the Skyranger and complains about losing good men out there today, which means he gets to sit next to Castillo's body bag as he ignores that volunteer form.
Oh come on. That's twice in one mission!
As always, we lose basically nothing. I wonder how people save-scum...probably turn autosaving off first. We search impatiently for alien scum to show their faces so we can go home. Finally, a Thin Man shows his face, showing that what people say about Squadsight and Overwatch is true.
Mary became a Sniper, and will be out of action for four days. White got promoted to Sergeant and now has a kill count of 14...only five less than Sock's. She's been nicknamed "Snake Eyes" for reasons beyond me. Saturn will be out of action for six days. Castillo...

"Corporal Castillo was not the best of us, not the fastest, strongest, smartest, or toughest of us. He was in the hospital more often than not. His record is pretty average, at best, both before and after entering X-Com. He was not special, he will not be the last to join or to leave...but he was the first, the first to fight those aliens and come back to talk about it. He survived the disastrous Operation: Devil's Moon, and went on to complete three more missions before dying on his fifth, as many as any who have died in the X-Com project. He is the tenth X-Com casualty of this war against the aliens; he will not be the last. And yet, today marks a turning point in a way. Aside from Castillo's death, a death of a friend to many a doctor or infirm, a loving husband, and so forth, we have something very valuable...an alien life. I'd like to think that, without Castillo's sacrifice, we wouldn't have our captive, nor his weapon, which will doubtless let us kill or capture aliens all the better, preventing some of the future tragedies. Remember Corporal Castillo, Corporal Huang, Sergeant "Clean" Papadoupolous, Private Ajram, and the rookies who never completed a mission. Remember their sacrifice, think of all they brought us. They died so others could live--not just others on their squad, their friends, their comrades-at-arms, but everyone on Earth. Remember that that's what we're fighting for here. We aren't squabbling over some scrap of land, or a dispute over a treaty. We aren't even fighting for our principles, or to protect our hometown from destruction and the death of maybe one in ten. We are fighting to protect every man, woman, and child on the face of the globe, and all that we have built up over the centuries, from annihilation. Many of you knew Castillo--Huang--Papa Clean--the others who died--those who came close. Many of you are considering leaving X-Com. Just remember...we're here for something greater. And we need every man and woman willing to go out on a moment's notice to stop alien abductions, or save generals of nations they never want to see again, or whatever we need you to do. We need these men and women, who not only want to risk their lives for the greater good, but who are skilled enough to do so and make a difference. And, above all, we need soldiers willing to face death in the face, whatever unearthly form it takes, and spit at it, following up with a bullet or laser or whatever the labs come up with to the face. We are not afraid. We are not weak. We are Earth. We are the defenders, the guardians, the protectors of this planet, this species, this civilization. Understand? We will not, cannot fall. Thank you."
"That was pretty good, sir."
"Thanks. I ad libbed it."
"I could tell. You rambled a lot. We hire a speechwriter for a reason, you know."

I hire a few new rookies and have the foundry work on upgrading the medkits. Then the game crashes.

Spoiler: X-Com (click to show/hide)

Alright, where was I...Ah, yes, between missions.
I order up a SHIV. We figure out how to make men fly (that is a LOT of Elerium), then begin interrogation of our Thin Man. Using mind-reading techniques, we discover a neural link of sorts between sectoids and those weird energy things...we are advised to capture one. I advise Dr. Vahlen to see if she can reverse-engineer plasma weaponry and promise to get on it.
Satellites are launched over China and Nigeria. I order Interceptors to be created in Asia and transferred to Africa. We also make a SHIV.

Monthly report. Japan discontinues involvement. Game crashes.
Japan's still gone. We get a C overall--we're doing well, but could be doing better. I try to bring up my idea of making more Skyrangers, but he disconnects.

We figure out light plasma rifles. Whoo! We begin work on heavy lasers; it's been delayed for a while, and we need more weapon fragments to do anything else.
Another crash. Come on...
I catch up to where we were and save.

Operation Cryptic Engine
More abductions. I don't even bother asking about the Skyrangers; I know the answer anyways.
France. Mexico. Argentina. If I recall correctly, the US was pretty terrified. Let's head to Meheeko, get that dealt with.
Lockdown, the SHIV (THUNDER-1), and two semi-rookies--Hamza Arjam and Maggie Hill--head out.
Lockdown spots a couple mutons, then grapples up to a rooftop. Neato. The squad takes cover behind cars and Overwatches (except Hill--we ran out of nearby cover). Then, three more mutons show up...
Lockdown headshots one, nearly killing it; the SHIV helps with dispatching another; Arjam breaks into a building because his chances to hit suck; Hill charges up to a muton due to sucky chances and nearly kills it. The muton responds by...shooting the SHIV? So does another. Man, these guys really don't like robots. Another muton breaks into the building to almost-kill Arjam. He responds by stepping forward, pressing his laser rifle against the muton's skull, and probably earning a promotion to Sniper. A turn passes, and no one is seen by Lockdown. Coulda sworn I gave him Squadsight. Evidently he doesn't, so he advances more towards the center of the battle...and spots three more mutons crouching behind a truck, entering the fray. Kinda. One of them advances to a corner next to Hill and copies a common Assault trick: Shoot when you're almost guaranteed to hit and kill, then deal one damage too little. One of the mutons takes cover behind a streetlight not even between him and us before shooting at basically the most-in-cover member and most distant of the squad. Lockdown shoots said muton, causing it to use Intimidate to panic Lockdown. This leads to Lockdown shooting and killing said muton, so I'm okay with it. We kill the other muton, then discover that there are three more in the building Hill and her 1 HP (and no medic) are hiding in. And the one that still-panicking Lockdown is on top of. It's down to Arjam to protect Hill. He also gets Intimidated. Hill runs up to the only cover in the room, right next to Arjam...then misses and gets plasma grenaded. It's down to Lockdown...He hops down to the street, hides behind a truck, reloads, dodges muton fire, grapples onto another truck, shoots a muton with his pistol, dodges more fire, headshoots the muton (not killing it), dodges more muton fire, finishes that muton off with his pistol (to conserve ammo), dodges the other muton's fire, shoots it twice with his rifle while dodging fire, and kills the last muton within seconds of it getting onto the roof. This guy deserves a promotion. Or two. Or maybe two, plus a laser sniper rifle.
Dr. Vahlen regrets the loss, wondering if there was some aspect of the research she overlooked, something she could have done.
"You could have been God. Only He can stop stuff like this from happening."
"...Are not you an atheist, sir?"
"Exactly."
France, the UK, and Russia are panicking.
Lockdown (who did have Squadsight!) is promoted to Lieutenant.
Ten mutons. Ten. Wow.

I submit orders for a laser sniper rifle (I get two), a couple satellites, and a Firestorm. Heavy lasers, for Heavies, SHIVs, and Interceptors, are completed. Further research requires Elerium, which was all eaten up by the Firestorm.

Operation Shattered Whisper
A small scout UFO was spotted and quickly shot down in China. Carlos "Deacon" Sanchez, a lieutenant that...someone from South America gave us for dealing with abductions leads Socks, O'Sullivan, and Endo in to investigate.
A couple of floaters show up before we make it ten meters. Deacon and O'Sullivan kill the floaters with a shot each, because lasers are awesome. We advance and see the energy being, whatever it was called. Vahlen reminds us that we should see if we can capture it with the arc thrower.
"...I knew there was something we forgot!"
"...You did not bring the arc thrower? You were mentioning just yesterday how--"
"I know, Doctor."
Endo takes a couple shots and dies. Socks retaliates by running up and shooting it, lethally.
"Sir, killing these--"
"I know."
"--particular aliens gets us nowhere."
"It gets them to not kill us, doesn't it?"
"We should focus on cap--"
"I know."
"--turing one of them--"
"I KNOW, I JUST FORGOT THE FRAKKING ARC THROWER, OKAY?!"
My irritation crashes the game. Reload. Socks kills it again. I investigate to find further aliens...they're outside the ship, two mutons, good to know. O'Sullivan grapples to a good position atop the UFO, Socks double-taps (okay, there's a real name for the skill, but I like "double-tap" better) a muton that tries to intimidate her halfway through (no effect), suppression and misses, does O'Sullivan not have Squadsight or is there just too much cover, and Socks crits on the remaining guy. Then the game crashes. I need to figure out something that lets me do this without constant alt-tabs...maybe the Steam Community thing has something? I vaguely remember seeing someone use a browser in it.
Aside from Socks breaking 20 kills and Endo...being killed, nothing to report for the aftermath. Oh, and I order a couple carapaces.

Life goes on. South Africa asks for some Thin Man corpses, which we provide. This evidently leads to medical advances, so win-win. We built the Firestorm, making me remember that hey, we might have enough Elerium to do some research stuff! They start unlocking the secrets of the plasma rifle, but sadly aliens launching a terror attack in Kolcatta interrupt us.

Operation Hidden God
Socks. Lockdown. Cookie. Sanchez. Four of our best and brightest (or, arguably, three of our best and our only heavy). Everyone except Lockdown in his skeleton suit has carapace armor; everyone except Sanchez with his LMG has a laser. We have the soldier with the highest kill count, our best medic, the Second Castillo, and a guy with a rocket launcher. We are facing what may be the toughest mission since Castillo died.
We are ready.

[To Be Continued...]

Spoiler: X-Combat (click to show/hide)

Operation Hidden God
We move out, Lockdown taking position on a truck, the rest moving out. We tell a civilian to get the the Skyranger...wait, if the Skyranger can hold us and a bunch of civilians, why can't it hold more of us? I'm starting to suspect some kind of X-Com Soldiers Union that I'm not aware of...Anyways, three crysallids. Lovely folks. Lockdown kills one in one shot, thanks to his elevated position, head-shooting skills, and laser rifle. We don't see any more; they seem to have retreated towards areas with fewer armed people and more victims. We save four, one dies. Then, we spot two crysalids. Given that I'm treated to the neat up-close animation, I'm guessing that these are two more. Yup. Two of the crysallids kill Sanchez. Socks kills one and Cookie mortally wounds another, before that crysallid and a zed kill Cookie.
Well...frak. Half the team dead in two turns. What was that line? "Get back to the Skyranger, screw India"? Such a plan is under consideration, but Socks is pinned by xenos. She polishes off the crysallid and Lockdown manages to knock half the health off a zed, but another cryssalid, doubtless trailed by more of the undead, bursts in...only to be finished with two quick shots, filling the heat gauge or whatever on her rifle.
Another trio of crysallids shows up. Two zombies are seen, one splits apart into a crysallid an mauls Socks. Dammit. Skyranger! Skyranger! WHERE THE FRAK DID THE SKYRANGER GO?!? Three crysallids skitter past where Socks is, but the fourth polishes her last hit point off. Dammit. I "saved" another civilian, but apparently we had to dump all five of them because I saved zero in the final report.
Goddammit, that was our suckiest hour. And if Lockdown doesn't have PTSD and survivor's guilt after getting through two missions as the sole survivor, one of which was our first complete failure and saw the death of two of our best and Sanchez...
For some reason, X-Com's near-total failure to protect Komchatka combined with already-high levels of panic across Asia leads to India withdrawing support for the X-Com Project immediately.
And in case anyone cares...Captain Socks's final kill count was 26.

I hire five new rookies and check the Officer Training thing. Now, I will be able to send five soldiers out at a time. I sell off some excess alien corpses in hopes of raising some more funds, for another SHIV and another suit of carapace armor.
More fucking abductions. UK...panic level max. Australia...in Asia, where panic levels are extreme. Brazil...not a consideration. Game crashes...common.

Say, are there lose conditions other than "Eight countries leave the Council"?

(Even THIS breaks the character limit?!?)

[GreatWyrmGold]

(Same, Pt. 3)

Spoiler: X-Competence (Ha!) (click to show/hide)

I've discovered that I have had X-Com open for 25 hours. I'm not sure what percentage of that I was actually actively playing, but eh.

Operation Crystal Prophet
_{Dammit, what did I say about mystical mission names? It's bad juju.}
Abductions. UK, Australia, Brazil. Most of Europe is panicking, South America is mostly fine, and half of Asia is already gone, so UK, even though the difficulty is tied for highest and the reward...actually, that heavy sounds pretty useful.
Our soldiers...we have five, but our options are limited. Mercier, Assault, our last front-line combatant. O'Sullivan and Snake Eyes, snipers. Deacon and Torres, support.
We spot some mutons when Mercier advances a little too far, a little too fast. Doesn't O'Sullivan have Squadsight? Anyways, everyone except Snake Eyes misses, and even a headshot won't put these bastards down (if it doesn't crit). The mutons fire, and the car most everyone else is taking cover behind explodes. Mercier, badly injured, retreats. More failed shots are followed up by WHY DIDN'T I SEE THE PLASMA GRENADE COMING?!? White...that's Snake Eyes? Damn, she's dead, Torres is in critical condition, and Deacon is at one health. Effing plasma grenades. Mercier pulls a Socks (ie, runs up right against the muton and blasts its brains out), and before we can even get a breather or look up if stabilized soldiers come back with us if we run*, three more mutons come out of a truck. Um...two of them killed one soldier, critically wounded another, and made two others have crappy low health. We blow one up--they're blowing up? Oh good, they're just Floaters. No, wait, a mix--one floater, dead, and three--erm, two mutons. Alright, I can deal. A lone sniper once killed three mutons on his--are those two bogeys? Of different kinds? Fuck the UK, fuck panic, fuck the new Assault, we're leaving.
And the game crashes. Neat, I'll be able to flee in terror half a turn earlier.
Alright, reload, White dead, Torres needs to be stabilized, but Deacon is right...wait, why are you out of medkit applications? Oh I give up. Two survivors is better than none.

*The wiki does not answer this question. As noted, due to game crashes and crash-related bugs, I did not find an answer.

The bad news is: We've lost five soldiers over two consecutive failed missions, with panic now spreading across Germany and Australia, plus Deacon is out of action for two weeks, plus Mercier--our only remaining frontline combatant--is out for five.
The good news is: Promotions for "Mad Dog" Mercier (Sergeant) and O'Sullivan (Corporal). And yes, O'Sullivan now has the Squadsight ability.
Let's see...Red-level panic across Europe, plus in Australia, plus orange-level in the US, China, and South America, plus yellow-level in Africa...we should move to Canada, people are chill there. And in Mexico. I wonder why.

Plasma rifles are perfected. We don't have enough anything to try anything else, though. We finish another pair of satellites, because I thought we would have more uplink capacity by now. Instead, I have them work on upgrading SCOPEs and making another SHIV. Those will be complete in a week, just in time for a council report. New soldiers should be arriving in two days, and another SHIV in 6.
The US asks for UFO power supplies. We have none.

Monthly report...Russia's left, surprised more haven't...a B? Despite our first-ever failures? Our successes must have been damn good. I celebrate by setting up a new satellite uplink and cursing our lack of alien materials preventing us from making Titan armor.

SCOPES upgraded. SHIV built. SABS (SABS Acronyms, Beginning with S) overwhelming. A UFO lands in Nigeria...wait, what?
I wish I had thought to visit the Officer Training School thing...

Operation Stone Gift
Lockdown. Saturn. O'Sullivan. Tracy Dunn, that new recruit. THUNDER-3. These are the people investigating the landing UFO...and one turn in, we discover that the UFO was about 90 degrees off from where we thought it was, judging by the crysalids coming up behind O'Sullivan's position. O'Sullivan kills one, Lockdown knocks another down to 1 HP, the rookie hurries forward to use her new arc thrower, Saturn and T-3 kill the third, and the second eviscerates Dunn (GODDAMMIT WHY DID I WANT TO CAPTURE A CRYSALID?!?), causing Lockdown to panic and...kill the crysalid. You know, constructive panic is always a good thing. O'Sullivan grapples to a decent vantage point, hoping to be able to move on to the roof of the UFO, then notices a few mutons and grapples back so the rest of everyone can advance. Dunn rises as a zombie who will turn into a cryssalid too soon for comfort, some bogeys we have never seen before because I didn't accidentally save scum sorta arrive, fukit I have some of my best soldiers...fukit I can't have three failures in a row...FOR GLORY AND THAT SUICIDAL CRAP! O'Sullivan and Saturn kill Dunn, again; people miss; the disk-shaped bogey gets right next to the SHIV and HOW DID IT FIT SO MANY TENDRILS AND GUNS INTO IT a ha ha it has 16 health no biggie just BACK TO THE SKYRANGER NOW! Ignore the three new mutons, ignore that the Tardisk (Aside: $10 bucks says this is a better name than what the game calls it) that is killing Lockdown along with the muton army, crap, don't panic O'Sullivan, or if you do panic by running back to the Skyranger, WHY ARE YOU PANICKING BUT SHOOTING INSTEAD OF RUNNING?
Everyone that survived after Lockdown's death managed to get back from the third consecutive failed mission. Saturn got promoted to Lieutenant. O'Sullivan got wounded for five days.

"Well...this is unfortunate. I have no doubt that, at the time of his death, Lockdown was our best man. Our best soldier, ever since Socks got killed. A lot of you started seeing him as a Second Castillo, after...after whatever operation he killed those mutons in, who cares? They all blend together, after a while. Not to put too fine a point on it, but considering him a successor to someone who had just died might not have been the best idea.
"Not that you have a lot of choices, I guess. So many have died. Socks, who had the highest xeno kill count of any soldier. Papa Clean, the record-holder before his death. Corporal Huang, a promising sniper, among the best we had at the time, maybe the best. Cookie. Snake Eyes. Castillo. Uncounted rookies. Now Lockdown. All in all, twenty have died.* Dunn died twice." *nervous chuckle* "Sorry. Now, we just have eight soldiers--half of whom have never so much as seen an alien--and a robot. And our scientific and engineering teams, and so forth, of course. Well...I'd like to say that we're going to win, but I just said some of our best have died, and yesterday I was telling you about these new weapons the aliens have.
"Here's the truth. None of us have been on more than four missions, we're running out of resources. On the other hand, the aliens keep ramping up the pressure, with more and deadlier weapons than they've ever had before. They're hitting harder, we're breaking. It sucks. Well...yeah, that's all I can say. We've stalled, the best we can do is throw more recruits and SHIVs at the problem, hope we don't lose...and we're on a losing streak. So, yeah. Why are we still fighting? Because we don't have a choice. We are the world's best chance for fighting off the alien invaders."
Groans.
"<sub>Sir, what have I told you about going off-script?"
"I don't want to use those when the big guys die, you know?"
"You caused a riot when Smirnova died. Why didn't that clue you in?"

*Creepy. Castillo was Death #10, Lockdown #20.

More abductions. I go for the ones in Canada because the others look tougher than I want to deal with right now. South Africa and Argentina are in much more panicky areas and offering better rewards...but a new lieutenant isn't bad, a new heavy is good, and fukit, I don't think we can handle a Very Difficult mission right now, so Moderate it is.
Rookies Heinrich Schneider, Rodrigo Martinez, and Jowar Jaitley join Mad Dog, Deacon, and O'Sullivan on this live-ammo training exercise. We start up, heading for what looks like a restaurant or gas station or something. A couple thin men poke out the back, a couple floaters are spotted when one guy heads in. The thin men hit Schneider, knocking him down to near death...He kills one thin man, with O'Sullivan pulling a Socks on the other and knocking it down to 1 health. Martinez does much the same, except that since he can fire his primary weapon after moving, he kills a floater. Deacon tries the same, but only knocks off half his health. Mad Dog finishes off the thin man, while one of the rookies...Jaitley! Jaitley finished off the floater. So we're done, right?
Nope.
We slowly, cautiously, advance. Suddenly, we see two mutons, one in reddish armor and not carrying a weapon. It also has 20 health! Let's hope it doesn't dish out correspondingly more damage than the Tardisk...we never find out, though, since we mob it, with Jaitley and Mad Dog pulling a Socks and the former getting the killing blow. That leaves one, lone, dead-meat muton against all of us. We kill it. Mobbed.
Schneider is out of action for two weeks, Martinez for nine days. The three rookies all got promotions: Schneider is a sniper, Martinez an Assault, and Jaitley a Support. Jordan "Yeti" MacDonald of Canada, another Assault, joined.

Panic in Argentina...Brazil...South Africa.
The red muton was termed a "berserker," due to my suggestion of "red muton" not going over well. Our scientists begin working on it. This teaches us very little.
We launch satellites in South Africa and Brazil, to lower panic.

Operation Hot Jester
Well, at least it isn't mystical.
Someone in Germany got captured or trapped or something. We're expected to save them. Let's do it...and pray it's thin men and not a tardisk backed with a muton army.
The rookie Jens Johansen joins veterans Mad Dog, Deacon, and O'Sullivan, as well as newly non-rookies Jaitley and Martinez.
As we start to move into position, or formation, or something, we spot a few thin men. They spit poisonous gas at half our squad, and one shoots...hard to tell...Deacon? One of the rookies in the cloud panics and kills a thin man. I always like a constructive panic. As we finish off the thin men, we spot a couple others across the...street? river? Definitely a street, but why are we so much higher than it? Is this a common feature of German cityscapes, roads ten feet below the sidewalks? Wait, there are sidewalks next to the street, then these things above?
We see a couple more--are the aliens just trying to empty out their stockpiles of thin men? Did the infiltration thing fail due to the infiltrators' eyes and tendency to dissolve into toxic gas when someone fist-bumped them too hard? Anyways, the thin men are numerous, and their aim issues are fixed, so they are able to kill Martinez. Which sucks, because we're low on front-line combatants and overfilled, so to speak, with support and snipers. Anyways, is that Mad Dog panicking over a semi-rookie being killed? We kill the thin men, and before we even down the last one Jaitley chats with some guys in suits, pointing the way to Hutch--the guy we're saving--and saying they were pinned down. I sarcastically wonder if they tried shooting them. Sure, there were a good number, but it was still single digits. And where's the rest of the security detail? These thoughts are interrupted by no fewer than four thin men opening fire on Jaitley, killing him. Mad Dog runs and guns for a couple, only to discover that no LOS existed between them and his final position. We kill all but one, then Johansen keels over from poison. I'm...being a bit stingy with medkits. We're not going to have anyone critically injured this mission, are we?
We advance in the wrong direction for a bit before O'Sullivan notices the big yellow arrow and moves in the correct direction. Once we get in earshot, we discover that Hutch has been basically complaining about us not getting there fast enough this whole time. Man, I hate escort missions. At least these idiots don't run directly at enemies. Anyways, three or four thin men drop in, all overwatching, one directly behind Mad Dog. Hutch watches the three soldiers dispatch a thin man each and suggests that his security detail be getting weapons for our supplier. Yes, for, not from, and yes, our supplier, not us. Gee, thanks. In another genius move, another thin man drops down alone, maybe 20 feet from O'Sullivan, AKA Miss "I Kill One Of You Every Round". At least Hutch thanks us and promises support for our project before we leave. Although the game crashed right after the latter promise...maybe they wanted backsies?
Reload, nothing special. Everyone gets promoted--O'Sullivan to sergeant ("Specter"), Mad Dog to Lieutenant, Deacon to Captain. Mad Dog will be out of action for five days.

Operation Blind Skull
Abductions. Screw the Very Difficult stuff, I'm heading to Mexico for the Moderate stuff. Gonna train up some...I forgot to hire new rookies. Oops. Oh well.
Specter. Saturn. Deacon. Yeti. Schneider. THUNDER-2. This is our A-Team, the folks who are gonna destroy this abducting force.
Except it crashed.</sub>

Spoiler: X-Comeback (click to show/hide)

It's been a while. Let's fire up the ol' $20, see if we can get our money's worth out of it (and also not let what skills we have get rusty. And use the royal we for some reason.)

Alright...a couple more satellites would be useful. So would better weapons and armor, but we're pretty much out of alloys. Hm. If only we had some nice UFO crashes. Let's head to Mission Control to skip ahead why are there abductions? Huh.
Mexico, Moderate but minimal panic and the reward is 200 credits when we don't have much to buy. 20 alien alloys or 2 Elerium or something, maybe.
UK, max panic but Very Difficult. Four engineers as a reward, which I guess is average.
Australia, max panic but Very Difficult, only offering scientists (which have been idle ever since we ran out of raw materials to prototype with) and in a continent where half the people left.
...
UK. Don't make me regret this.

Operation Flying Scepter
Due to our remarkably limited numbers (note to self: Hire more rookies), we send everyone except Mad Dog, who is hospitalized. Specter and Schneider the snipers, Deacon and Saturn the supports, Yeti the heavy, and THUNDER-2 the loveable android companion over-rated deathbot.
I've never had the game crash while in briefing, this should be interesting. Where did it save?
And another thing forces me to reboot.
The mission begins with a bunch of random songs playing. I promptly alt-tab to pause YouTube tabs before returning.
Two mutons are quickly spotted. One is missed by two soldiers and THUNDER, the other shoots Schneider, who I put on Overwatch instead of having him move for cover. (Between his lack of a grapple and my lack of a mouse wheel, I didn't have many options...although in retrospect, they were mostly better than what I did.) O'Sanchez moved from her perch atop a building to one where she could see the mutons (who were inside said building). Yeti, firing the first rocket anyone's fired in a long time, missed, striking and shredding both mutons (intended) but also Deacon (unintended and easily-preventable if I had remembered Yeti's rockets before moving him). I also discovered that you can't leave a soldier's move half-done if you want to go back to him, so I basically screwed Deacon over...although at least it means they're less likely to gib Schneider. The shredded mutons were quickly killed, however, leaving Schneider to swing back onto the building and wonder if this at least counted as her cardio for the day.
We moved in, sweeping the building, but were interrupted by some thin men, who, angry at having been seen, moved out of the indistinct but possibly indoor area next to the convenience store (?) we were in and into an area they could kill us. Thin men being a joke by this point, they didn't survive the turn. Deacon...I try to get him to heal Schneider's wounds, but he kinda sprays the medikit stuff in a random direction. Maybe he should take up kickboxing, or maybe he should have shot Schneider in the other side.
I see a couple of shapes inside. I can't identify them, but one has an ungodly number of health bars. I then squint closer and realize that they are two mutons and one of those berserker things. I wish I had the shredder missile...ah well. I move Specter into a position where she hopefully have LOS to the things and...well...she does. The red berserker moves into melee range with Specter, and, well...I'll need to be training Schneider more soon, won't I? (C'mon, crash, crash...is it bad to hope the game crashes in my favor? I mean, it's just to undo the effect a bug had on my tactics.)
Miraculously, the Red Berserker only reduced O'Sullivan to 1 HP. Saturn is on the roof by now, and hurls a smoke grenade to protect the sniper's new position (aka, far away from the berserker). THUNDER claims a second muton. Deacon takes a potshot at the berserker, so it runs over, hops off the building, and...chases Schneider, who it should have been barely aware of due to being shot and its previous quarry running into a cloud of smoke? Deacon shoots again, activating Intimidate and drawing it towards him. The berserker takes off maybe two-thirds of his health...geez, either my armor is awesome or these guys are overrated. (Aside from health. Goshdangit, when you can't get the whole team on it they're hard to kill.) The last "normal" muton takes a second shot at the SHIV and destroys it, making me wish it hadn't gone for the 50-50 chance of hurting the berserker. Deacon shoots again, which goddammit why do you get so many free moves?!? I exploit this ability by having Saturn shoot at the berserker, getting it to run towards him, hopefully causing him to continue the chase. Yeti polishes off the muton, who he reduced to 1 HP last turn before dealing a 7-damage crit and uttering the excellent line "Dead and gone," which would have been even better if X-Com supported special corpse stuff for overkill. The berserker runs towards Deacon...into a building, WTF?...it attacks Deacon through the building, critically wounding him! And Saturn for some dumb reason doesn't have a medikit! Saturn shoots the berserker, leading him to hunker down behind over from the berserker right next to him as Specter takes the more productive (and hence approved) form of panicking. Sadly, she misses. Yeti runs forward, hoping to be able to finish off the bastard, and spots three more mutons who move into position. The berserker moves and, amusingly, its animations make it seem uncertain which of the two low-health, foolishly-advanced snipers to kill. Less amusingly, the mutons hurry forward, one pulling a Socks (hey, that's our schtick!) and killing Saturn, causing Schneider to replace him in the un-productive kind of panic. Yeti, my sole non-dead/dying/panicking squaddie, fires a rocket, finally finishing off the berserker and knocking off most of two mutons' health. Specter finished off one; Yeti, whose assault on the previous mutons emptied his primary weapon, advances and kills the other with his grenade. The last muton maneuvers right into Specter's headshot...just a little too late for Deacon.
Crash.
A screwup gives the kill to Schneider, but nothing else changes.
Specter was gravely wounded, out for 16 days. Yeti and Schneider are out for a bit over a week, 9 and 8 days respectively. Specter also became a lieutenant.

Panic in the US. Glad the rest of North America was pretty chill. We sell a few spare alien corpses, and also some damaged UFO parts that it turns out have no value except to sell. Darn vendor trash. Since we're down to four soldiers, all in the hospital, I hire a round half-dozen new recruits. While I'm thinking about it, I purchase Rapid Recovery. Checking the Memorial, I realize that Deacon was the second captain, after Socks, to be killed. Or be a captain. All we have now are a few lieutenants and a squaddie. And a crash. And six new squaddies, if no one attacks for three days. Of course, if they attack in two, we'll only have Mad Dog, and if they attack before that...we'll have nothing.

Monthly report. France withdraws. B overall. I don't think I would have given myself a C, not the over-a-thousand-credits I received. (Although, yay achievement.)

Big UFO in Brazil. Game crash. Okay, seriously?
Maybe you can figure this out. After it "stop(s) working," Steam gives me a message that the game failed to start because it was already running. Any ideas?

Anyways. Council report. Same deal. Large...scout, landing? Well, I remember what happened last time we met one of these. And it's in Brazil, which given the image piecewise shared...for the first time in the history of the X-Com project, I'm not even sending the skyranger.
Aw, come on, another crash?!?

Ooh. Australia leaves this time. Game saved.
Ooh, abductions! Let's see...Canada offering scientists we don't need, France offering a support (which we do) and also being more panicked...also, Canada is Difficult rather than Very Difficult...France. And don't make me regret protecting you frog-eaters!

Operation Accidental Save Scum Dark Grave
Rookies Juanita Delgado, Mustapha Ghalib, and Gabriel Valez (a guy, incidentally, and also the one with the arc thrower) join Mad Dog, Yeti, and Schneider to deal with alien abductions in what I will pretend is Normandy even though it's Paris. I also give Yeti carapace armor and a SCOPE, because he didn't have those for some reason. Thought he did last mission...anyways. These four men, one woman, and poor rookie being teased about his name will kill as many aliens as they can find, and then (if their threats whilst on the Skyranger are true) find whoever names missions and give them a stern talking-to.
"It could be worse...they coulda named it Dark Prophet," Mad Dog points out. Yeti and Schneider nod; the others look confused. Yeti and Schneider move, Overwatching. Mad Dog advances, noting a berserker and a muton, who advance. Yeti and Schneider open fire, Yeti with his LMG and Schneider with his pistol, but both resoundingly miss. Gabe shoots the berserker, causing him to intimidate by advancing (dammit, when do I get to move my soldiers for being shot at?), causing the poor guy to panic since the bastard's right next to him. Thankfully, it's the productive kind of panic; even more thankfully, this means he hit twice! The muton shoots Schneider, knocking off all but one of his hit points. Two more mutons and another berserker are seen maneuvering just a bit in the distance.
...
Crap. At least the big guy briefly forgot that a 5-foot step is neither required nor takes up your whole turn.
I'll give it another round. If things go swimmingly, we'll continue; if not, we cut bait. (Yes, "fish or cut bait" originally referred to two jobs that had to be done by fishermen. I fully expect us all to be put into bait-cutting or desk work or something if things continue along this line.)
Yeti shoots the first berserker, and Schneider headshoots it, managing to deal only three damage. "What more do you want, you pathetic sniper?" you can almost hear it ask. "Do you want to press your weapon against my pathetic head? Well, do it!" I also notice that Schneider is not carrying a laser sniper rifle, for some reason. Mad Dog Socks the berserker, triggering an Intimidate. Sadly, rather than having the berserker try to figure out how to advance on someone right next to him, Mad Dog panics. And not the productive panicking, which might have finished off those last three bars of health; he ran. And not the smart kind of running where you get away from the scary thing; he hops down on the other side of the wall from the berserker, barely better than before panicking. Delgado socks the bastard and how do you miss from less than a foot away?!? Ghalib manages to hit the bastard, amazingly, and he dies. The same muton from earlier snipes Delgado down to 1 HP, the other berserker advances on Gabe and...doesn't attack...

I've made my decision. Back to the skyranger!

We all retreat, except Mad Dog. A muton and the berserker advance; Yeti blows them (and a car) up. The berserker survives. Schneider shoots him, causing Intimidate to...are you fucking running AWAY FROM THE SKYRANGER?!? Not you too, Delgado!

...I think this mission may be too screwed up to run away from.

Mad Dog recovers, Runs, Guns, and Socks the berserker, causing the least effective Intimidate since the time one of them sort of shuffled around with its free movement. Gabe hits, Ghalib misses, sadly since it had one freaking hit point left. The berserker kills Gabe, Delgado kills the berserker, and Mad Dog is still too terrified to run to the Skyranger. Dammit, you two, if you had run onto the Skyranger or something Gabe would be alive! Yeti fires his shredder rocket into the distance as a last "Fuck you," and we abort.
Schneider is gravely wounded and will be out for five days. Delgado was wounded and will be out for four. Gabe...well, everyone regrets making fun of him now.

Now, I have a riddle for you. By the time the Skyranger gets anywhere after abductions are being reported, people are gone, so basically all we're doing is killing aliens and maybe stopping...oh, half the abductions in one of two or three locations.
In one mission, we do so, killing one berserker and nine mutons, but we lose two good soldiers (and medics) as well as an expensive and effective robot. In another, we only lose a recruit, but we fail to kill more than a muton and a pair of berserkers.
Which, good viewer, is the success, and which the failure? The one where we killed more mutons and saved a fraction of the sbduction victims, or the one where we didn't get our forces basically gutted?

Brazil is offering to trade four laser pistols for five engineers. That's a better than 1:1 exchange rate, but we have plenty of engineers to do the basically nothing they're doing, and nowhere near enough alien alloys to waste on that.
The satellite uplink is complete.
A big UFO in Brazil damn near destroys the interceptor there. Even with a Dodge matrix being used, it is red from tip to tail when I abort.
Satellites are completed and launched in Argentina and France. We are now covering all of South America (letting autopsies and interrogations, if we had any, be completed instantly).

Terror attack in Buenos Aires. Very Difficult. Ignore, or as I call it, "Pre-emptively Abort". Argentina withdraws from the Council, much to my lack of surprise. Brazil panics. I think this means our satellite there isn't getting launched...

More abductions. All Very Difficult.
UK: Three panic bars, four engineers.
Mexico: Four panic bars, new Assault lieutenant guy.
Egypt: Four panic bars, four scientists.

Operation Bloody Rain
Pack your metaphorical sombreros and prepare to become piñatas, we're going to Leon!
Specter, Mad Dog, Yeti, Schneider, Delgado, and Ghalib are enjoying suffering this Latin American "vacation" and...well, at least one of them's probably going to die, let's face it. And let's hope that bloody rain is from flying sectoids or something...
Delgado spots a pair of mutons inside near the building part of the gas station we landed by. One smashes through an interior and an exterior window to get out; the other uses the door. Specter ascends to the cover over the gas pumps and sees...two more mutons and a berserker. Then what I think is two more berserkers approach. Botched supressing fire (?) blows up the gas pump Delgado is next to, and another finishes her off.
The snipers on top share a meaningful look.
"Skyranger?"
"Skyranger."

Canada, Mexico, Egypt, and the UK are panicking. Well, on the bright side, that has to be some kind of record, right?

I order a new satellite to replace the one Argentina evidently stole, as well as a squad of SHIVs and a few Phoenix cannons. Heck, might as well do something with the credits we have, right?

Egypt requests scatter lasers. No.
A large UFO lands in South Africa. Sadly, no. Maybe if our squad of SHIVs was finished. South Africa panics just before we do.

A very large UFO scanning for something is spotted near...South Africa. Do they think District Nine was a documentary, or at least something addressing a real-world problem? Eh. Interceptor, intercept!
Well, the good news is that the Interceptor didn't crash. Guess what did?

I should stop. One Pyrrhic victory and two failures (with a combined casualty rate far lower).

Spoiler: X-Complete (click to show/hide)

Operation Swift Mother
I almost completed a mission of clearing out a large scout UFO, but the game crashed right at the end. I was using the Steam Community browser to write the report, in hopes of avoiding crashes, so I lost everything. Short version: Mad Dog, Yeti, and the recruit Ghalib got killed, the last one because I had used another recruit's medkit on Yeti and couldn't stabilize Ghalib. Ghalib had the arc thrower, which failed to stun a berserker and could have stunned the Outsider if Ghalib hadn't had the tenacity to die. It should go without saying that Vahlen complained about us not prying the arc thrower out of Ghalib's--wait, why didn't we do that?
Oh, and I met heavy floaters.

X-Com crashed on the Mission Aftermath Screen thing--the one where it tells you who got promoted and how long the wounded will be out.
Schneider made Corporal, getting the all-vital Squadsight. Zhang became a Heavy, getting the all-destructive Rocket Lawnchair Actualy, he became an Assault the second time. Regardless, he is gravely wounded and will be out for an even week. But most importantly...we got a mess of alloys, elerium, and a new research.
We begin work, ordering a heavy floater autopsied, plus a couple sets of titan armor, a couple plasma rifles, and a heavy laser. And a couple arc throwers, but that has less to do with the sudden glut of materials and more to do with I thought about it.
The autopsy gave us little special, except hints on how to fix things faster. Somehow. We began work on alloy cannons. I want one now, but...we don't have enough alloys. Dammit. Well, we have our SHIV squad. I order research to begin on plasma cannons for the interceptors. However...

Apparently, a few more of those top-panic nations retreated from the council, because come the council report, I got news that the X-Com project would be ended.
"Well, not too bad sir, I suppose the Earth's militaries will just have to do stuff themselves. We have lots of research data and some spare weapons, so...what do you mean, cooperate with the aliens? Sir, haven't they been killing us and abducting us and...sir, what's that purple glow around your head?"

END TRANSMISSION

I expected hoped to last a while longer, but really, this is probably best. I had some new toys, but my only really experienced soldier was Specter. I also had a lieutenant sniper, a new heavy, and some rookies, plus some SHIVs.

Some critiques, in case anyone here is working on the next XCOM game.

Spoiler: Critiques (click to show/hide)

-The difficulty curve was...off. Sectoids? Thin Men? Outsiders? Canno fodder. Floaters? Sometimes took a couple shots, but usually not. Mutons? Tough, but doable. Crysallids? Berserkers? Swarms of mutons? Tardisks? All those other big-name aliens? Those were a lot tougher. (Especially the effing crysallids.) Similarly, early UFOs can be shot down easily with unupgraded Interceptors...then with damage...then not at all, eve with little upgrades. The first months lured me into a false sense of security, which lead to me developing habits that lead to the death of my best soldiers when I started encountering tougher aliens.
-I noticed that, once you hti a certain point, you start needing alloys and elerium a hell of a lot. I suspect that my inability to make or research advanced weapons past a certain point contributed to my decline--my inability to take any more ships (until that last one), get more raw materials, and make new weapons. I can't help but wonder...what were the mutons' armor, or the floaters, or whatever made out of and powered by? Consider having a chance for the more heavily-cyborged or -armored enemies to drop some alien alloys, or maybe even elerium.
-SHIVs were underwhelming. I mean, sure, they were a bit tougher and maybe had a better attack than rookies, but they can't advance, can't use advanced arms and armor, and can't take cover. Not really worth the credits. Plus, the feel was...off. It felt like they should be expendable combatants. To fix this, I would advise making them weaker and make it so they could be rebuilt if destroyed (probably at a cost).
-Early on in the game, scientists and especially engineers were in high demand and low supply. Once you get 30-40, though, the demand kinda...dropped off. I'm not sure exactly how to fix this, but it was odd. It fits back in with the "Difficulty Curve" thing as poor gameplay pacing, I guess.
-Make the Arc Thrower a secondary weapon. Isn't that basically what it is? Besides, if it wasn't pushing out things like nanofiber vests, SCOPEs, and medikits, I might have it more often. And on more than one soldier.
-Make the story less...linear and more developed. For instance, Thin Men were supposed to have been used as infiltrators (presumably once they fixed the "weird eyes" and "explodes into toxic gas with heavy impact" issues), but this never really gets developed. Heck, just having the Director guy turning out to be a thin man would be nice. It's a thread that gets started...then dropped. There were also hints that mutons (and other aliens?) were to some extent conquered peoples working as soldiers, with the tribal markings and whatnot, but again this was mentioned and dropped. And what do the aliens do with their human abductees? Heck, these last two could be combined--some kind of cybernetic human unit would be potentially scary. Not to mention...crysalids and zombies. Geez, just a zombie apocalypse of sorts would be worth expanding on. "Ignore/Fail a Terror Mission and that area has an infestation of the undead which will cause missions and increase panic, possibly spreading." That threat would have gotten me to risk my folks more, rather than just running once the crysallid resistance got too heavy. Two more points related to these...
-Seriously, how do you spell cryssalid? Couldn't you have given these guys a simpler name, like "Skitterer" or "Crawler"? And mutons...why not name them "Hulks"? And what's with "Sectoids"? I'm guessing this has something to do with the original, but seriously. every other alien, from thin men to berserkers had a name that was a real word. Pick a consistent nomenclature and run with it. And the soldiers supposedly came up with the names...what's with that? "Why did they name them" is a bit odd understandable, but the "Why did they name them that is peculiar.
-When I abandoned the terror mission, why were the "saved" civilians thrown out? Couldn't we take them with? And while I'm at it, why can't we take weapons, medkits, arc throwers, etc off of our dead teammates and use them? Why can't we have multiple Skyrangers? Why do the local militaries never send tanks, or soldiers, or anything? Why can't we share the technology with the world's governments, letting them make their own (possibly crappy) advanced weapons and armor? Why is it so hard to get any support? Why do the soldiers always break down any doors in their way (the "open door" command is spotty at best) and jump through any windows? Is that why we can't get the support? Why can't normal fighter jets take down UFOs if even the first, unupgraded Ravens can? Why can we send only one Interceptor at a time, anyways? There are a lot of questions like this, but I think that's enough.
-On the Interceptors...the Firebirds were neat, but expensive. (I never even used mine.) So were other things, like Archangel armor and advanced SHIVs. Heck, pretty much anything having to do with Interceptors counts, as they almost never get used and almost always cost a lot.
-The "cutscenes" in the middle of battle were an awesome feature! ...for the first few missions, then they got dull. There are two solutions I propose: Reduce the number and increase the variety (if possible). To the first...cutscenes most every time someone dashed, killed or saw an alien (or would have if they hit), took a reaction shot, got killed, grappled, or whatever gets dull fast. Limit it to important events--killing major enemies (that first sectoid, early thin men, mutons before we get laser weapons to deal with them, crysalids if you ever get weapons that blow the buggers away in a single shot, always berserkers, tardisks, and other "miniboss" monsters...), successful reaction shots, killing notable soldiers (ie, not the one rookie surrounded by veterans), jumping through windows, spotting a new or dangerous type of alien, etc. The second would be tougher and perhaps not feasible, but having more than one animation/"scene" arrangement per cutscene-triggering event would help.

I think that's all, and it's definitely enough.

Now to delete those autosaves and such that piled up.

[10ebbor10]

-The difficulty curve was...off. Sectoids? Thin Men? Outsiders? Canno fodder. Floaters? Sometimes took a couple shots, but usually not. Mutons? Tough, but doable. Crysallids? Berserkers? Swarms of mutons? Tardisks? All those other big-name aliens? Those were a lot tougher. (Especially the effing crysallids.) Similarly, early UFOs can be shot down easily with unupgraded Interceptors...then with damage...then not at all, eve with little upgrades. The first months lured me into a false sense of security, which lead to me developing habits that lead to the death of my best soldiers when I started encountering tougher aliens.

It depends on what difficulty you're playing at. At harder difficulties, The cannon fodder aliens become a real threat. (Especially thin men, which get a tendency to always hit, and crit often.) And the reason that the curve appeared to spike is probably because you got behind on the tech race. ((No idea what a tardisk is however)). Also, Chryssalid. Not that hard to spell.

-I noticed that, once you hti a certain point, you start needing alloys and elerium a hell of a lot. I suspect that my inability to make or research advanced weapons past a certain point contributed to my decline--my inability to take any more ships (until that last one), get more raw materials, and make new weapons. I can't help but wonder...what were the mutons' armor, or the floaters, or whatever made out of and powered by? Consider having a chance for the more heavily-cyborged or -armored enemies to drop some alien alloys, or maybe even elerium.

Material management is an important part of the game.

-SHIVs were underwhelming. I mean, sure, they were a bit tougher and maybe had a better attack than rookies, but they can't advance, can't use advanced arms and armor, and can't take cover. Not really worth the credits. Plus, the feel was...off. It felt like they should be expendable combatants. To fix this, I would advise making them weaker and make it so they could be rebuilt if destroyed (probably at a cost).

This has been fixed in the DLC. Well, fixed, more like flawed the other side of the scale. On another note, SHIV's barely cost anything, and you can upgrade them in the foundry to use laser and plasma weaponry, amongst various other things. In the DLC you can also upgrade them with automated close combat reaction fire, infinite health regeneration, extra health and extra movement.

Also, late game SHIV's fly, so they don't need cover.

-Early on in the game, scientists and especially engineers were in high demand and low supply. Once you get 30-40, though, the demand kinda...dropped off. I'm not sure exactly how to fix this, but it was odd. It fits back in with the "Difficulty Curve" thing as poor gameplay pacing, I guess.

Yup, once you get enough scientists, you get enough.

-Make the Arc Thrower a secondary weapon. Isn't that basically what it is? Besides, if it wasn't pushing out things like nanofiber vests, SCOPEs, and medikits, I might have it more often. And on more than one soldier.

Nanofiber vest really isn't that usefull. On a side note, fixed in the DLC, where you get a foundry project that gives everyone 2 inventory slots.

-Make the story less...linear and more developed. For instance, Thin Men were supposed to have been used as infiltrators (presumably once they fixed the "weird eyes" and "explodes into toxic gas with heavy impact" issues), but this never really gets developed. Heck, just having the Director guy turning out to be a thin man would be nice. It's a thread that gets started...then dropped. There were also hints that mutons (and other aliens?) were to some extent conquered peoples working as soldiers, with the tribal markings and whatnot, but again this was mentioned and dropped. And what do the aliens do with their human abductees? Heck, these last two could be combined--some kind of cybernetic human unit would be potentially scary. Not to mention...crysalids and zombies. Geez, just a zombie apocalypse of sorts would be worth expanding on. "Ignore/Fail a Terror Mission and that area has an infestation of the undead which will cause missions and increase panic, possibly spreading." That threat would have gotten me to risk my folks more, rather than just running once the crysallid resistance got too heavy. Two more points related to these...

Mildly touched upon in the DLC, and in the late game. Really, late game gives a decent info-dump on these beings.

-Seriously, how do you spell cryssalid? Couldn't you have given these guys a simpler name, like "Skitterer" or "Crawler"? And mutons...why not name them "Hulks"? And what's with "Sectoids"? I'm guessing this has something to do with the original, but seriously. every other alien, from thin men to berserkers had a name that was a real word. Pick a consistent nomenclature and run with it. And the soldiers supposedly came up with the names...what's with that? "Why did they name them" is a bit odd understandable, but the "Why did they name them that is peculiar.

Chryssalid really isn't that hard to spell. But yeah, it's mostly that aliens with the fancy names have been ported over from the old X-com. Actually, I really prefer the fancy names, rather than the unimaginative generic names.

-When I abandoned the terror mission, why were the "saved" civilians thrown out? Couldn't we take them with? And while I'm at it, why can't we take weapons, medkits, arc throwers, etc off of our dead teammates and use them? Why can't we have multiple Skyrangers? Why do the local militaries never send tanks, or soldiers, or anything? Why can't we share the technology with the world's governments, letting them make their own (possibly crappy) advanced weapons and armor? Why is it so hard to get any support? Why do the soldiers always break down any doors in their way (the "open door" command is spotty at best) and jump through any windows? Is that why we can't get the support? Why can't normal fighter jets take down UFOs if even the first, unupgraded Ravens can? Why can we send only one Interceptor at a time, anyways? There are a lot of questions like this, but I think that's enough.

Mostly game design. Same reason why you can only stuff 6 people in a skyranger (which kinda explains why you can't take civilians). Reason there's no military support isn't touched upon, but often the mission sites are littered with what used to be military troops. I wish to believe (no evidence in game whatsoever) that the aliens also emit a latent panic field, which explains why Earth's finest panics so much, and can't hit the broad side of a barn.

On a side note, you do sometimes get request from nations for materials.

Anyway, the reason normal fighter jets can't take down UFO's is because the Raven's are, at this point, Earth's most advanced fighter craft.

-On the Interceptors...the Firebirds were neat, but expensive. (I never even used mine.) So were other things, like Archangel armor and advanced SHIVs. Heck, pretty much anything having to do with Interceptors counts, as they almost never get used and almost always cost a lot.

Not using the firebirds probably explains why you lost. Those things are mandatory if you wish to take down later alien craft. And the archangel and advanced SHIV's really become quite nessecairy.

Final question: How much sattelites did you deploy?

[Mr Space Cat]

Whenever I get to a point in the tech tree where I get firestorms (proper name, firebird is close enough so who cares) then usually all the UFOs are just landing and don't need to be shot down. By the time I get a firestorm on every continent (which takes a few months) then I've already assaulted the alien base, have the hyperwave relay, and advancing towards end game. The only time I really use a firestorm at that point is to take down the plot-related UFO.

My tech progression for interceptors basically goes from avalanche missiles>phoenix canons on two interceptors per continent while advanced fighter craft is researched>first firestorm is built while emp canon is researched>firestorm+emp for every continent. After that I have no problems with UFOs landing with no need for any interception whatsoever.

[GreatWyrmGold]

-The difficulty curve was...off. Sectoids? Thin Men? Outsiders? Canno fodder. Floaters? Sometimes took a couple shots, but usually not. Mutons? Tough, but doable. Crysallids? Berserkers? Swarms of mutons? Tardisks? All those other big-name aliens? Those were a lot tougher. (Especially the effing crysallids.) Similarly, early UFOs can be shot down easily with unupgraded Interceptors...then with damage...then not at all, eve with little upgrades. The first months lured me into a false sense of security, which lead to me developing habits that lead to the death of my best soldiers when I started encountering tougher aliens.

It depends on what difficulty you're playing at. At harder difficulties, The cannon fodder aliens become a real threat. (Especially thin men, which get a tendency to always hit, and crit often.) And the reason that the curve appeared to spike is probably because you got behind on the tech race. ((No idea what a tardisk is however)). Also, Chryssalid. Not that hard to spell.

It was Easy.
The game never named the cyberdisk for me (I didn't learn its name until I looked it up just now), so I gave it a name based on how it unfolded with more weaponry and such than should have been able to fit.
I keep forgetting how many s's and how many l's.

-I noticed that, once you hti a certain point, you start needing alloys and elerium a hell of a lot. I suspect that my inability to make or research advanced weapons past a certain point contributed to my decline--my inability to take any more ships (until that last one), get more raw materials, and make new weapons. I can't help but wonder...what were the mutons' armor, or the floaters, or whatever made out of and powered by? Consider having a chance for the more heavily-cyborged or -armored enemies to drop some alien alloys, or maybe even elerium.

Material management is an important part of the game.

No, really?

-SHIVs were underwhelming. I mean, sure, they were a bit tougher and maybe had a better attack than rookies, but they can't advance, can't use advanced arms and armor, and can't take cover. Not really worth the credits. Plus, the feel was...off. It felt like they should be expendable combatants. To fix this, I would advise making them weaker and make it so they could be rebuilt if destroyed (probably at a cost).

This has been fixed in the DLC. Well, fixed, more like flawed the other side of the scale. On another note, SHIV's barely cost anything, and you can upgrade them in the foundry to use laser and plasma weaponry, amongst various other things. In the DLC you can also upgrade them with automated close combat reaction fire, infinite health regeneration, extra health and extra movement.
Also, late game SHIV's fly, so they don't need cover.

SHIVs cost a heck of a lot more than rookie soldiers.

-Make the Arc Thrower a secondary weapon. Isn't that basically what it is? Besides, if it wasn't pushing out things like nanofiber vests, SCOPEs, and medikits, I might have it more often. And on more than one soldier.

Nanofiber vest really isn't that usefull. On a side note, fixed in the DLC, where you get a foundry project that gives everyone 2 inventory slots.

That's one; there's still a lot of other useful things. Besides, isn't the arc thrower basically a secondary weapon? It seems to fit that nice pretty well.

-Seriously, how do you spell cryssalid? Couldn't you have given these guys a simpler name, like "Skitterer" or "Crawler"? And mutons...why not name them "Hulks"? And what's with "Sectoids"? I'm guessing this has something to do with the original, but seriously. every other alien, from thin men to berserkers had a name that was a real word. Pick a consistent nomenclature and run with it. And the soldiers supposedly came up with the names...what's with that? "Why did they name them" is a bit odd understandable, but the "Why did they name them that is peculiar.

Chryssalid really isn't that hard to spell. But yeah, it's mostly that aliens with the fancy names have been ported over from the old X-com. Actually, I really prefer the fancy names, rather than the unimaginative generic names.

The generic names have the advantages of being slightly easier to remember and being what soldiers might actually call the aliens.
Really, the big thing is the lack of consistency.

-When I abandoned the terror mission, why were the "saved" civilians thrown out? Couldn't we take them with? And while I'm at it, why can't we take weapons, medkits, arc throwers, etc off of our dead teammates and use them? Why can't we have multiple Skyrangers? Why do the local militaries never send tanks, or soldiers, or anything? Why can't we share the technology with the world's governments, letting them make their own (possibly crappy) advanced weapons and armor? Why is it so hard to get any support? Why do the soldiers always break down any doors in their way (the "open door" command is spotty at best) and jump through any windows? Is that why we can't get the support? Why can't normal fighter jets take down UFOs if even the first, unupgraded Ravens can? Why can we send only one Interceptor at a time, anyways? There are a lot of questions like this, but I think that's enough.

Mostly game design. Same reason why you can only stuff 6 people in a skyranger (which kinda explains why you can't take civilians). Reason there's no military support isn't touched upon, but often the mission sites are littered with what used to be military troops. I wish to believe (no evidence in game whatsoever) that the aliens also emit a latent panic field, which explains why Earth's finest panics so much, and can't hit the broad side of a barn.

Well, yes, but some in-game explanation would help.

On a side note, you do sometimes get request from nations for materials.

I know, but I've never seen evidence that that affects anything past giving you some more money.

Anyway, the reason normal fighter jets can't take down UFO's is because the Raven's are, at this point, Earth's most advanced fighter craft.

And one of them can take down UFOs on its own. The US has a lot more than one jet fighter, and the UFOs aren't seen to have multiple weapons.

-On the Interceptors...the Firebirds were neat, but expensive. (I never even used mine.) So were other things, like Archangel armor and advanced SHIVs. Heck, pretty much anything having to do with Interceptors counts, as they almost never get used and almost always cost a lot.

Not using the firebirds probably explains why you lost. Those things are mandatory if you wish to take down later alien craft. And the archangel and advanced SHIV's really become quite nessecairy.

Noted.

Final question: How much sattelites did you deploy?

I had 7 by the end of the game. I would have had eight, but Argentina withdrew from the council right after I put a satellite over it.

Whenever I get to a point in the tech tree where I get firestorms (proper name, firebird is close enough so who cares)

My bad. Been a while.

My tech progression for interceptors basically goes from avalanche missiles>phoenix canons on two interceptors per continent while advanced fighter craft is researched>first firestorm is built while emp canon is researched>firestorm+emp for every continent. After that I have no problems with UFOs landing with no need for any interception whatsoever.

Noted.

[Silfurdreki]

-The difficulty curve was...off. Sectoids? Thin Men? Outsiders? Canno fodder. Floaters? Sometimes took a couple shots, but usually not. Mutons? Tough, but doable. Crysallids? Berserkers? Swarms of mutons? Tardisks? All those other big-name aliens? Those were a lot tougher. (Especially the effing crysallids.) Similarly, early UFOs can be shot down easily with unupgraded Interceptors...then with damage...then not at all, eve with little upgrades. The first months lured me into a false sense of security, which lead to me developing habits that lead to the death of my best soldiers when I started encountering tougher aliens.

This is kind of interesting, I think, since for me, usually playing classic, it's the other way around. It's more difficult in the beginning since you have so few tools to use. Especially when you get thin men as they tend to crit your guys in full cover while surviving a grenade which makes them very annoying to deal with without laser weapons. It's also difficult juggling the satellite deployment versus spending resources on weapon development. Especially if you lose a few guys and have to get new rookies, which actually costs a fair amount.

There are a few points where the game really tests your tech progression. One very harsh one is when mutons start appearing, by then you really need laser or plasma weapons and some upgraded armour, otherwise you'll have a bad time. There's also the first difficulty spike, the first terror mission, where chryssalids are introduced. If you get through that without losses you're probably doing pretty well.

[Iceblaster]

Just got this.

Named a guy 'Andrew Jackson' and as a final gift on his first mission, takes down the remaining sectoids with one grenades.

Yaaaay.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Named a guy 'Andrew Jackson' and as a final gift on his first mission, takes down the remaining sectoids with one grenades.

You know that his nickname must be "Old Hickory", right? He is clearly a reincarnation of the seventh US President, and no other callsign will do.

EDIT: Now I want to replay XCOM with the US Presidents as your soldiers, damn it!

[Iceblaster]

Named a guy 'Andrew Jackson' and as a final gift on his first mission, takes down the remaining sectoids with one grenades.

You know that his nickname must be "Old Hickory", right? He is clearly a reincarnation of the seventh US President, and no other callsign will do.

EDIT: Now I want to replay XCOM with the US Presidents as your soldiers, damn it!

My first play through has everyone named after famous people.

Currently Cleopatra has 8 kills on 3 missions with Joan of Arc and Jackson following her.

[USEC_OFFICER]

My first play through has everyone named after famous people.

Currently Cleopatra has 8 kills on 3 missions with Joan of Arc and Jackson following her.

Oh. I thought that the RNG had smiled upon you or something. Sorry about that. _{Still, he better be 'Old Hickory'.}